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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has posted an Instagram video showing the explosive results of the company's latest attempt to land a Falcon 9 rocket booster on an automated barge at sea (The Verge). The landing looks textbook until the rocket topples over -- Musk writes that "Falcon lands on droneship, but the lockout collet doesn't latch on one [of] the four legs, causing it to tip over post-landing. [The] root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff." Despite SpaceX's successful booster rocket landing on solid ground in December, the company still wants to use its drone barge landing platforms, and last night's attempt was a very near miss.

Microsoft has announced that, due to the age of the still-popular Windows 7 operating system, it can only offer limited support for Intel's new Skylake processors under the OS, and only until 17 July 2017, by which time qualifying computers must be upgraded to Windows 10 (Motherboard). Microsoft writes that "as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support." While this will doubtless save Microsoft a great deal of effort when it comes to supporting older operating systems, it also leaves Windows users with less choice.

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More technical information has emerged about Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality headset via a YouTube video featuring Microsoft technical evangelist Bruce Harris (Mashable). Harris confirms that HoloLens will have a battery life of around five and a half hours if you're working on Word documents, which will drop to just two and a half if you're carrying out more render- and computationally-intensive work. The device also has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, 3D audio and will only be available in English in its first iteration.

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Volkswagen's got a radical plan to fix ride-sharing and car ownership

ByKatia Moskvitch

Researchers have discovered that eating a diet that's low in fibre could be harmful not only to your own gut microbes, but also those of your descendants (Ars Technica). Human gut microbes were transferred into mice that were fed either a high- or low-fibre diet. As expected, the low-fibre group lost microbial diversity, but the team also found that, when they bred, those microbial changes were passed on to the following generations. Within four generations, it was impossible to reverse the loss simply by feeding the mice a high-fibre diet -- only a faecal transplant was effective in restoring a healthy microbial balance

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Popular password management service LastPass has added compulsory email authentication for all users when adding new devices to an account, following the release of a picture-perfect phishing tool by a security researcher (The Register). The phishing tool, developed by Sean Cassidy, was created to demonstrate the ease with which criminals could block the warning prompts the new LastPass 4.0 interface uses to alert users if they enter their master password anywhere other than LastPass's own website. "Unlike most phishing attacks, users won't be on their guard because this isn't supposed to be a secure website," Cassidy said.

New research into one of the universe's oddest astral bodies indicates that it can't be explained by dust from a swarm of comets, but probably wasn't caused by aliens, either (New Scientist). Star KIC 8462852, informally dubbed Tabby’s star after Tabetha Boyajian, lead scientist on the team that discovered it, drew headlines last year due to the way it dipped in brightness at odd intervals. Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University has analysed historic photographic images of the system, taken between 1890 and 1989, which show that it's been dimming for around a century, which would call for an implausible 648,000 comets, each 200 kilometres wide, to have passed by the star. Schafer observes that his findings aren't consistent with alien artefacts, either.

The US Supreme Court is to decide whether a group of gamers can bring a class action lawsuit against Microsoft to claim that the company was aware of a fault which caused the XBox 360 to scratch game discs, eventually rendering them unplayable (Ars Technica). Microsoft argues that the case is not eligible for a class action, as the issue affected only 0.4 percent of users. The company argues that cases should be brought individually and that the scratching was the result of misuse of the consoles by their owners.

Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly has shared photos of the first flower to bloom in space: a bright orange zinnia (Engadget). The plants had been struggling against mould growth and unnaturally curling leaves, but Kelly's careful husbandry pulled at least one back from the brink. The failed plants and moulds themselves will be useful, however, as analysing them will show exactly what unique difficulties can affect horticulture in space.

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How the UK recycles millions of dirty old disposable coffee cups

ByRichard Priday

Doom co-creator John Romero has released his first new level for the game in 21 years (Eurogamer). Posting on Facebook and Twitter, Romero wrote that "it's been 21 years since I made a DOOM level. Here's my version of E1M8 using DOOM1.WAD. I limited myself to only the shareware assets." The level is built for single-player, co-op and Deathmatch play and the release notes hint that it may be a "warm-up" for a future FPS project. The Dropbox link to download the project appears to currently be experiencing intermittent heavy traffic.

Data visualisation company Uncharted has created an interactive image based on historic data from the Tor network, showing the flow of data and the concentration of exit nodes around the world (WIRED). The beautifully depicted animation is fascinating to watch, and also reveals that the majority of Tor's exit nodes are concentrated in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK.

Tim Peake's spacewalk was stopped after fellow astronaut Tim Kopra discovered water his helmet. The spacewalk was terminated by the flight director after Kopra noticed the issue, although Nasa said it was not an emergency. Despite being just a "small bubble" the water was concerning enough to cause an early cancellation of the spacewalk. "The crew is not in any danger," Nasa said.

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Fortnite shunning the Android Play Store is a major security headache

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